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Physical Sciences Case Study Gerald R. North Department of Atmospheric Sciences Texas A&M University [email protected] Outline • History and Reasons for the Study (Hockey Stick) • Summary of the NRC Report 2006: Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2000 Years • Variety of Data Types & Cultures in the Study • Issues Regarding Assuring Data Integrity • Data Archiving Suggestions Rep. Barton’s harassment of scientists, disdain for fellow lawmakers a disservice Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Editorial The heart of science isn’t quiet. Challenges to data, methodology and interpretation churn throughout the scientific process. Harassment of scientists, however, deserves no role in scientific inquiry. U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, ignores this principle in his shameful hectoring of well-known climatologists. Late last month, Barton requested mounds of documents from three scientists known for studying global warming. As chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Barton demanded detailed documentation of almost every aspect of hundreds of studies the scientists had penned. He made a similar request to the head of the National Science Foundation, writing, “The term ‘records’ is to be construed in the broadest sense ... whether printed or recorded electronically or magnetically or stored in any type of data bank, including, but not limited to ... summaries of personal conversations or interviews ... diaries ... checks and canceled checks ... bank statements.” Barton gave the scientists 18 days to comply with the request, which he has the power to convert into a subpoena. One recipient was University of Virginia researcher Michael E. Mann, whose studies suggest the Earth’s climate has grown warmer in large part due to humans’ use of fossil fuels. Mann co-authored a 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Since then, numerous climate studies have supported Mann’s original findings. Partly because of its influence, Mann’s early work still draws critiques from global-warming skeptics. Barton cited these critiques in his letter to Mann, adding “this dispute surrounding your studies bears directly on important questions about the federally funded work upon which climate studies rely.” The extraordinary scope of Barton’s investigation has rightly appalled many scientists and lawmakers. The European Geosciences Union called the requests “burdensome and inappropriate.” The director of the National Academy of Sciences vainly offered to appoint an independent panel to review the consensus on global warming claims. A mark of the inappropriate nature of Barton’s actions, a fellow Republican rebuked him in a public letter. U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Science Committee, warned Barton that his investigation was outside his committee’s jurisdiction and showed “an insensitivity toward the workings of science [that] may reflect your Committee’s inexperience in the areas you are investigating.” Calling Barton’s precedent “truly chilling,” Boehlert added, “My primary concern about your investigation is that its purpose seems to be to intimidate scientists rather than to learn from them.” Barton has responded to his critics with a bizarre tone unsuited to the subject’s gravity. “We regret that our little request for data has given them a chill,” his committee spokesman recently said. Barton is right that global warming is a pressing and controversial issue — and tracking the use of federal funding is a worthwhile endeavor. In his indiscriminate mining for documents, however, Barton ignores the first steps of fact-finding: hearings, discussions with the scientists and reading the peer-reviewed and published papers in the field. Given his indebtedness to the oil and power industries — from 1989-2004 he received more money from these industries that any other House member — Barton seems to be acting on motives other than a thirst for truth. This is a disservice to the nation. Harassing scientists is the wrong way to find answers to environmental questions that affect us all. Bloggers: RealClimate From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search RealClimate is a commentary site (blog) on climatology by a group of climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. It aims to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion is intended to be restricted to scientific topics and to avoid political or economic implications of the science. Contents [hide] • 1 Recognition • 2 Members • 3 External links • 4 References Bloggers: Climate Audit From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Climate Audit is a blog run by Stephen McIntyre devoted to auditing the statistical methods and data used in historical reconstructions of past climate, especially multiproxy reconstructions such as the 1998 reconstruction by Mann, Bradley and Hughes ("MBH98"), which was prominently featured in the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report. McIntyre became interested in these issues after advocates of the Kyoto Protocol used the Hockey Stick graph from MBH98 in ways that he found similar to Bre-X and other stock frauds, leading him to try to audit the MBH98 data and analysis. He launched the blog on October 26, 2004,[1] just before Geophysical Research Letters published a paper by McIntyre and Ross McKitrick critiquing MBH98. The blog is largely concerned with McIntyre's efforts to audit current climate publications. It supports comments. The ClimateAudit blog was credited with spurring two hearings on the Hockey Stick Graph, open documentation and the reliability of peer review in government-funded science research by the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee in 2006 at which Stephen McIntyre testified. Of the role of the Climate Audit blog in inspiring the hearings, the Prometheus blog of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research of the University of Colorado at Boulder said, referring to ClimateAudit, "[McIntyre and McKitrick] also have provided a case study in the power of blogs in today's worlds of science and politics."[2] Climate Audit has been highlighted by the press including The Wall Street Journal[1] and United Press International[2] . Hockey stick controversy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search The so-called Hockey stick graph as shown in the 2001 IPCC report. This chart shows the data from Mann et al. 1999. The colored lines are the reconstructed temperatures, and the gray shaded region represents estimated error bars. Reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperatures for the last 1,000 years according to various older articles (bluish lines), newer articles (reddish lines), and instrumental record (black line). The Hockey stick controversy is a dispute over the reconstructed estimates of Northern Hemisphere mean temperature changes over the past millennium,[1] especially the particular reconstruction of Mann, Bradley and Hughes, [2] frequently referred to as the MBH98 reconstruction. The term "hockey stick" was coined by the head of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Jerry Mahlman, to describe the pattern. Contents [hide] • 1 Nature of the dispute • 2 Criticisms of the MBH reconstruction • 3 National Research Council Report • 4 Committee on Energy and Commerce Report (Wegman report) • 5 Updates • 6 References • 7 External links [ NRC Report 2006 NRC Report 2006 Paleo-Science Cultures • Historical Thermometer Data • Tree Rings • Borehole Data (adapted from other uses) • Ice Data (isotope & borehole) • Lake, Sea Bottom, Corals & Spelio Cores • Glacier Lengths & Budgets • Historical Documentary, etc. • Climate Model Runs (controls and forced) • Other . • Historical Thermometer Data John, You don't need to ask permission to get HadCRUT2v. It is sitting on our web site. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/ . Cheers Phil NRC Report 2006 NRC Report 2006 • Tree Rings: NRC Report 2006 • Borehole Data The project “Global Database of Borehole Temperatures and Climate Reconstructions” has as its goal the assembly, analysis, and interpretation of borehole temperatures relevant to understanding the nature and causes of recent climate change. It was inititated by the International Heat Flow Commission of IASPEI, and implemented by the Geothermal Laboratory of the University of Michigan with support from the US NSF. Contributors to this database include: A. Frasheri (Albania); J. Cull (Australia); V.M. Hamza (Brazil); V. Zui (Belarus); A.M. Jessop, J. Majorowicz, J-C Mareschal, K. Wang (Canada); M. Chen, S. Hu, S. Shen, L. Xiong, J.-A. Wang, J.-Y. Wang (China); V. Cermak, J. Safanda (Czech Republic); I. Kukkonen (Finland); S. Roy (India); C. Clauser (Germany); A. Brock of Ireland; M. Verdoya (Italy); S.S. Marchenko (Kazakhstan); S. Veliciu (Romania); S. Berkovchenko, R. Dorofeeva, D.Y. Demezhko, A.D. Duchkov, I. Golovanova, I. Klimovsky, A.A. Vasiliev (Russia); M.Q.W. Jones (South Africa); R. Kutas (Ukraine); K.E. Rollin (United Kingdom); D.S. Chapman, E.R. Decker, W.D. Gosnold, R.N. Harris, A.A. Nyblade, H.N. Pollack (United States). • Climate Model Runs (controls and forced) • ~20 Countries have contributed detailed simulations of their climate models for the IPCC Assessment Report Four (AR4) • These include simulations of the last century and the next under different emission scenarios. • These simulation data are all available online at Lawrence Livermore
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